As mentioned many times in this blog, a basic tenet of the Gentle Art of Wandering is that you’ll find something special every time you wander even in the most unsuspecting of places. A good example of this is a mesa in the backcountry about forty miles or so southwest of Albuquerque.
The mesa itself is generally 300 feet tall and approximately ten miles in length. Its width varies from one to three miles. From a geologic point of view, the mesa has a volcanic lava cap (basalt) with an underlying base of sedimentary rock (typically limestone). There is an extinct volcano at the south end of the mesa and much of the limestone has been transformed into travertine.
The ownership of the mesa is a checkerboard of public (Bureau of Land Management) and private ranch land. The portion of the mesa on public land is open for you to explore.
As you can see, there is nothing that immediately grabs you as particularly special when you approach the mesa from the east. You’ll have to do some exploring to discover its specialness.
I have visited the mesa many many times over the past several years and am always finding something new and special. I first went to the area with my archaeology wandering partner, Bob Julyan to look for archaeology sites as Bureau of Land Management volunteers. Because the soil on the mesa top does not lend itself to farming, we never found an extensive cluster of archaeological sites on the mesa. The lack of site density did not discourage us exploring the mesa or stopped us from making amazing discoveries.
When you reach the top, you’ll run into plenty of grazing land and might find a quiet place to spend the day. That’s the volcano at the south end of the mesa off in the distance.
If you walk to the west side of the mesa, you’ll run into some spectacular views.
If you come in warmer weather, you could run into this guy. So watch where you step.
And on some days, your quiet might be interrupted by Air Force Special Forces units practicing low-level flying and landings.
You’ll never know what you’ll find when you look around.
As you can tell from the previous photo, the mesa top is a good place for game. And if you look on the ground, you might find an artifact left by a hunter. If you look closely at this picture, you can see a piece of chert used by ancient hunters to make a point or a tool.
My partner, Bob Julyan, found part of Paleo-Indian point from 10,000 years ago on the ridge overlooking this playa (dried lake).
Don’t forget to check out the more polished rocks for rock art. I thought this guy looked like a target for a carnival shooting game.
In some areas of the mesa you’ll find places where the travertine was close enough to the surface to be quarried for building material.
Here’s some travertine that was never shipped to builders.
I thought this piece of dissolved travertine looked like coral.
I wasn’t expecting to find a cave.
It would be fun to camp out near this cave to watch the bats fly out of it at night.
When I first saw rusted metal like this on the ground, I had no idea what it was. I thought it might be an old bucket or an exotic piece of mining equipment.
But when we started finding theses, we checked out Google Earth.
When we scanned Google Earth, we found three bomb targets on the mesa. Look for the circles carved into the ground to create a bulls eye. The targets were built during World War II to train bomber crews.
Finding the target circles on the ground proved to be very difficult. They looked like an old jeep roads no longer used. In a few years they will have completely faded away.
If you hike far enough, you might run into these volcanic fissures. The lava must have pushed out the fissures in addition to flowing from the volcano cone.
But the mesa’s biggest mystery are several stacked stone walls on the west slope of the mesa. This particular wall is over a half mile long and encloses a small valley / canyon. What was the wall used for? It’s not tall enough and too long to be useful as a corral or defensive enclosure. Do you have any ideas?
The mixture of rock types in this section of the wall is proof that the walls were built by humans and are not a natural phenomenon.
As these picture attest, this mesa has much for you to discover and is typical of the adventure that awaits you when you wander. A great thing about wandering is that you can wander anywhere. You can go to a backcountry mesa like this one, but you can also have a similar adventure wandering around your own neighborhood.
January 17, 2019 at 7:48 am
Seems a wonderful place to wander, but what’s it called and where is it?
January 17, 2019 at 7:52 am
It’s Mesa del Oro; it’s west of Alamo Road which is south of I-40 and north of Alamo Reservation.
November 29, 2016 at 8:25 am
Just wandering through your site…saw ‘mesa’ and had to look. Wasn’t sure where it was until I came to the ‘cave closed’ sign…then I knew…and practice bomb parts confirmed. Took my daughter hiking up there last year. What a great place to wander. There are a number of these targets still visible from WWII training activities. I see them when I’m flying from time to time. Over SW of Clovis I saw a huge swastika created from earth berms. Since this is the Melrose Bombing Range, wandering is probably not a good idea. Given new type targets and proximity to Cannon AFB, it is likely in more than casual use.
September 11, 2016 at 10:16 pm
I wonder if the low row walls are part of the terraces described here for water drainage diversion to farm fields? See this report for more information http://store.wnpa.org/research/petr04-09.pdf
June 10, 2016 at 10:20 pm
The low rock wall is pretty amazing. I have been thinking and wondering and still cannot imagine why it is there.
June 10, 2016 at 6:08 pm
That snake pic! That’s enough to keep warm weather wandering at bay ;).
June 9, 2016 at 8:55 am
Wow! Just think, all of this stuff is out there and no one but you know about it.
Your pictures not only detail your point, but the are pretty also. What is name of this mesa? I would like to see more of these wild places.
Rebecca